“So, is this a typo or did they demote you while I was in the restroom?”
Marcus held the card between two fingers like it was a piece of evidence he’d found at a crime scene. It was a standard-issue corporate card, heavy stock, matte lamination, slightly rounded corners because the marketing department thought that looked ‘approachable.’ It said ‘Ines Vance, Senior Associate.’
I looked at the card and then at Marcus. I had been a Director for exactly four days. I had spent the morning of the first of the month being congratulated by people I barely knew in the elevator. There was a cake in the pantry-lemon drizzle, remarkably dry, the kind of cake that requires a glass of water to survive-and a handwritten note from the CEO that used the word ‘stewardship’ three times.
My salary had been adjusted in the HRIS. My access level on the fourth floor had been updated so I could now enter the ‘Strategy Room’ without knocking like a peasant. But there, in the palm of a man who was about to decide whether to give us a $440,000 contract, was a piece of paper that said I was still sitting at the kids’ table.